


Wrong Road

by elementalv



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-31
Updated: 2007-07-31
Packaged: 2017-10-02 16:28:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elementalv/pseuds/elementalv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Destiny's a funny thing. One day, you think you know what road you're on, and the next, you come to find out you're not only on the wrong road, but you're on the wrong damn continent."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wrong Road

**January 1, 1989**

“Enqueri?”

Ellison held up his hand and stared straight ahead. The monkey he’d been tracking disappeared into the green noise of the jungle, but it shouldn’t have. It should still be plainly visible, because it hadn’t moved.

“It’s gone.”

Incacha tilted his head. “I can still hear its chatter. Faint, but there.”

“Not the monkey.” Ellison swallowed hard. “My far sight. It’s gone.”

At that, Incacha looked at him sharply. “What of your hearing?”

“Gone.” Ellison squatted down to pick up a bit of leaf litter. Instead of feeling the microscopic life he’d come to expect, all he felt was the sharp edge of a dried stem and the soft crumble of dead leaves. “All of it. It’s gone.”

He clenched his stomach against the acid bite of failure and ignored the rising urge to panic. Even if the tribe turned him out now that he was no longer useful, he’d learned enough about surviving in the jungle that he should be able to manage on his own until his relief came. It wouldn’t be easy, not by a long shot, but it would be doable. It had to be.

“Unlikely.” Incacha’s hand on his shoulder had its usual and inexplicable calming effect. “We must speak with the spirits.”

“Spirits?” He’d tried, but judging by Incacha’s suddenly painful grip, it was apparent that Ellison hadn’t managed to keep the bitter disbelief out of his voice.

“Come, Ellison. You have much to do before the next full moon.”

He stood to follow Incacha back to the village, even as he grieved the loss of his Chopec name. “The next full moon?”

“It will be the best time for a spirit walk.”

 

* * *

**June 17, 1993**

“Ratty telling you, telling you, telling you, Boss, and you got to listen. Bookman the man to see, ’cause Ratty can’t tell you nothing.”

Ellison took a deep breath and reined in his temper, because beggars couldn’t be choosers when it came to snitches willing to give up information. He just had to clear this one last case, and he would be free of Vice for good. Beating up Ratty might be satisfying, but it wouldn’t get him off the hook with either his old boss or his new boss.

He tried again. “You told me that _you_ have information about who the new dealer is.”

“Yes, Boss, that right. That exactly right. Ratty gots information.” Ratty bobbed his head a few times, then batted at something only he could see. Ellison had never been able to determine if Ratty’s neurological problems were due to mental illness or nearly a lifetime of drug abuse, and he didn’t particularly care. Even on his best days, Ratty was enough to give Ellison a migraine.

“About the new dealer, right?”

“Nuh-unh, Boss. Ratty don’t _know_ that.” Ratty looked frightened for a moment, then his gaze drifted to sly. “Ratty know who _do_ know that. That all Ratty know. That all, that all, that all.”

“Fine.” Ellison took a couple more deep breaths and managed not to yell. Instead, he asked in a relatively normal tone of voice, “Who is it that knows the new dealer?”

“Ratty done tole you. Bookman know,” he said in a sing-song voice. “Bookman see all, hear all, know all.”

After questioning Ratty for nearly an hour, it was the last straw, and Ellison grabbed him by the collar to shove him against the crumbling brick exterior of a long vacant storefront. “Bookman doesn’t exist, Ratty! Now stop your goddamn games and tell me what you know!”

Ratty started sniveling and whining immediately. “Bookman real. He real, he really real! Don’t hurt Ratty for the truth, Boss. Please don’t hurt Ratty for the truth. That ain’t right. Not when Ratty tryin’ to help.”

“Damn it!” He wasn’t sure who he was swearing at — Ratty for his inability to communicate or himself for his inability to be patient for any length of time. Ellison loosened his grip and let Ratty down, but it wasn’t enough to calm him. He hesitantly patted Ratty on the shoulder and spoke quietly through gritted teeth. “I’m sorry, Ratty. I’m sorry I scared you. But I’ve never met anyone who’s seen Bookman. He’s a myth. Like — like Santa Claus.”

“Bookman real. Ratty don’t tell no lie ‘bout that. Not to Boss.” He lifted up the hem of a shirt that might have been clean a decade earlier and blew his nose.

“Ratty —”

“Ain’t no one gonna tell you they know Bookman, Boss. They all lie.”

Ellison frowned. “Why?”

“You the boss, Boss. Bookman don’t like talkin’ to the Boss. Not with his own self.” Ratty wheezed out a chuckle, his earlier upset apparently forgotten.

Though tempted to find out what Ratty meant by ‘his own self,’ Ellison decided he was better off trying to get Ratty to take him to Bookman. He wasn’t yet convinced that Bookman was anything more than an urban legend, but Ratty seemed to think he knew someone who could provide the information, and that was good enough for Ellison. Hell, it was possible that Bookman _was_ the new dealer, and this was the only way Ratty could get the information to him.

“Will you take me to Bookman, Ratty?”

Ratty twitched away from Ellison. “Bookman don’t like talkin’ to the Boss.”

“But you promised me.” He added a cajoling note to his voice. “You promised me information about the new dealer, remember?”

“Yeah. Ratty remember.”

Ellison held up a fifty. “And do you remember what I promised in exchange?”

“Money.” Ratty should have been excited about the prospect of cash, but he wasn’t, and Ellison couldn’t figure out why.

“Fifty will get you a lot, Ratty. You could get a bus ticket to Seattle and see your sister, right?” He waved the bill in front of Ratty’s face to emphasize his point.

At that, Ratty’s eyes lit up. “Yeah. Ratty could. Ratty ain’t seen Sara in long, long, long time.”

“Take me to Bookman, Ratty, and this money’s yours.”

After a long moment of indecision, Ratty nodded. He made a snatch for the cash, but Ellison was waiting for that and had the bill out of reach before Ratty ever got near it.

“You know the drill.” He put the cash back in his pocket and gripped Ratty’s shoulder. “Soon as you get me to Bookman, I’ll give you the money.”

 

* * *

“Here. Bookman here,” Ratty whispered harshly, getting more agitated by the moment. “Bookman tell Boss all about the new dealer in town.”

“I don’t see him,” Ellison said in a low voice.

The building, once a bank if the cornerstone was to be believed, was dim and absolutely spotless. There should have been cobwebs and dust and other debris, but instead, it looked cleaner than Ellison’s loft after the maid service had finished with it, which didn’t make any sense at all. He caught a faint whiff of ammonia and lemons.

“He there. He there.” When Ratty tried to back out of the building, Ellison grabbed his arm. “Don’t make Ratty go with you, Boss. Please don’t.”

“I’ll protect you. Come on,” he said, tugging on Ratty’s arm.

They approached the doorway to the back half of the building, and Ellison stopped short of going through. Instead, he pulled out his weapon and peered around the corner, ready to fire in case Ratty had brought him to an ambush.

“You can let Ratty go, Officer.” The voice came from the far left corner, and it sounded grimly amused when it added, “He and I will settle up later, won’t we, Ratty?”

“Ratty sorry!” He wrenched his arm out of Ellison’s grip and stumbled through the doorway. “Ratty just wanted to see Sara. That all. Please don’t cut Ratty out. Please, Bookman? Please?”

Ellison listened carefully, but he couldn’t hear signs of anyone else back there. He tamped down the frustration of knowing that once upon a time, he would have been able to tell without question. That was all water under the bridge at this point, and he still had a job to do.

“We’ll talk about that later. Who did you bring?”

“Boss Ellison.” Ratty spoke quickly, “He good. Boss Ellison good. Ratty never had no problem with him. Bookman ask anybody, and anybody tell Bookman it okay to trust Boss Ellison.”

“We’ll see.” Ellison heard the man walk closer. “What did he promise you?”

“Fifty. It enough.” Ratty had switched to a pleading tone. “Enough to get on the bus and see Sara. Ratty ain’t seen Sara in too long.”

“Officer?”

After a moment, Ellison answered, “I’m a detective.”

“Give Ratty his money.” After a brief pause, Bookman added, “Is it too much to ask you to holster your weapon as well?”

For a moment, Ellison puzzled over the second request. There was no way the man could see his gun. On the other hand, he sounded reasonably intelligent and coherent, so it was possible he’d just assumed Ellison had drawn it as a matter of course.

“I’ll give Ratty his cash, but I’d rather not put my weapon away until you come out into the light,” he said evenly. Though the lack of antagonism was as refreshing as it was startling, he wasn’t about to let it lull him into a false sense of security.

“Understood. Ratty, get your money and get out of town. I don’t want to see you for a while.”

“Yes, sir! Ratty understand.” He stumbled out backward, his hand held out, and Ellison slapped the bill into it. “Thank you. Thank you both. Ratty so happy. He happy.”

“Go, Ratty,” said Bookman.

Ratty turned and bolted out of the building. Ellison backed away from the doorway and said, “Come out, now.”

“What? Not even a ‘please’?” He sounded far too sure of himself, and that made Ellison antsy.

“_Please_, come out, now.”

Bookman stood in the doorway, his hands raised and a too-easy smile on his face. “Wow, man. Didn’t think a cop would ever say please to low-life scum like me.”

Ellison kept his gun trained on him and said, “I’m going to pat you down, now. Face the wall and put your hands on it, then spread your legs.”

“Sure thing.” He did so. “Have you ever noticed that there’s a great deal of erotic subtext in the very action of having a suspect face the wall in a spread-eagled position?”

“What?” Ellison paused before he started the pat down.

“Think about it, Detective. You’ve just stripped what little psychological defenses your suspect has by making them face away from you. They don’t have a clue what’s going on behind them, and they don’t have any say in the matter.” Ellison ran his hands up Bookman’s left leg and down the right, but it didn’t shut him up or slow him down in the slightest. “Classic dom-sub dynamic there. And when the suspect and cop are the same gender, whoo-boy!”

“Jesus.”

“I’m Jewish, man, but I’m not Jesus.”

Satisfied that Bookman wasn’t carrying, Ellison reholstered his gun and stepped back. “You can turn around, Chief.”

“Thanks.” Now that Ellison wasn’t focused on making sure he was safe, he took a closer look at Ratty’s Bookman. He wasn’t tall, maybe five and a half feet at most, and he had long, dark hair that most women would probably kill for. Ellison thought he’d long since hardened his heart against that sort of masculine beauty, but his reaction to Bookman told him he was wrong.

Ellison asked abruptly, “What’s your name?”

“Thought we established that already. I’m Bookman.” He leaned back against the wall in a provocative pose, as if responding to Ellison’s unfortunate interest. It didn’t make a damn bit of sense; there was no way Bookman could know what he had been thinking. No way at all.

More sharply than he wanted, he asked, “What’s the name your mother gave you?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes. I’m required to identify my sources.”

“Even confidential sources?” Bookman shifted slightly, and for a moment, all Ellison could think about was dropping between his legs and —

“Yes, damn it!” He breathed in hard through his nose and willed himself not to react any further. If he wanted sex, he could always call Carolyn. She hadn’t said no to him yet, despite the final decree, and she was a hell of a lot safer than a man, no matter what he fantasized about at night. In a calmer tone, Ellison added, “The information is sealed, but we have to have it.”

“Ratty sold me out for fifty dollars,” Bookman said. “My information is a hell of a lot more expensive than that. Can you afford me, Detective?”

The question twisted Ellison’s gut a little. “You don’t even know what I’m looking for.”

Bookman grinned. “Sure I do. Ratty mentioned it when you two came in just now.”

Ellison drew in a sharp breath. There wasn’t a chance in hell that Bookman had heard Ratty whisper to him. Even if he’d been hiding just around the corner, he still couldn’t have heard Ratty. No one’s hearing was that good.

He ignored the small voice that reminded him his own hearing had once been that acute.

“Let me guess. You’ve got the place wired,” Ellison said, calming as he spoke. That was the answer, and it made complete —

“No bugs, man. Can’t stand the buzz. I’ll bet _you_ know what I mean.”

And Ellison _did_ know. There hadn’t been many flare-ups of his senses before Peru, but there’d been a few, mostly when he was under stress. During one of them, he’d been stationed at the Pentagon and was assigned to an office that had been littered with listening devices, though no one had told him about them. The only reason he knew was because he’d finally tracked down the noise that was slowly making him crazy.

His mouth completely dry, Ellison asked, “Who are you?”

After a moment, he answered, “Blair Sandburg.”

Then Ellison asked, “_What_ are you?”

Sandburg pushed away from the wall and turned around to go into the back, saying, “For some reason, Detective, I can’t help thinking you already know the answer to that question.”

 

* * *

A short while later, Ellison sipped the tea Sandburg had handed him and forced himself to listen to the other man without jumping all over him and demanding answers.

“Destiny’s a funny thing. One day, you think you know what road you’re on, and the next, you come to find out you’re not only on the wrong road, but you’re on the wrong damn continent.” He poured himself a cup of tea and sat down opposite Ellison. There was no natural light in that section of the building, and apparently no electric light, either. Instead, Sandburg had lit a few candles, saying it was for Ellison’s sake.

“I don’t understand.”

“Don’t you?” Sandburg cocked his head to the side and studied Ellison.

“I —” He didn’t owe Sandburg a damn thing. “All I want to know is who the new dealer is. Tell me that, and I’ll get out of your hair.”

“I’ve got a lot of hair, Ellison,” Sandburg said, clearly amused. “Are you sure it’s going to be that easy to get out of it?”

Ellison put his cup down hard, and it was a wonder it didn’t break. “The dealer. Who is it?”

“You haven’t heard my price yet.”

“Name it.” Name it, so he could get out of there. Name it, so he could shove those memories back down where they belonged. Name it, so he could stop mourning the loss of something he’d never wanted in the first place.

“Time.” Sandburg leaned back and took a sip of his tea.

“What?”

“I want some of your time.”

Hell, no.

“Why?” It was the kind of stalling tactic Ellison despised, but he didn’t know what else to do. For all that he didn’t look like he would hurt a fly, Sandburg scared the hell out of him, and Ellison wanted nothing more than to leave. If it weren’t for this one last case that kept him tied to Vice, he _would_ leave, but Sandburg had information, and Ellison needed it.

“I fell in love with you the minute I saw you.”

“No you didn’t.” Of that, Ellison was certain.

“Hm. How about this: I _wanted_ to fall in love with you the minute I saw you.”

Unwillingly, Ellison laughed. “Not buying that, either.”

“Okay, how about this: four and a half years ago, I dreamed of a jungle and a shaman and a panther.”

Ellison shoved his chair away from the table and stood up. “No.”

Sandburg remained seated. “The panther turned into a man — a white man with eyes the color of a winter sky — which was pretty freaky, all things considered.”

“No.”

He ignored Ellison and continued, “The shaman told me that destiny could be twisted —”

“But it could never be thwarted,” Ellison said before he could stop himself.

“Wrong damn continent, man.” Sandburg stood up. “You look like you could use something stronger. You’re off the clock, now, right?”

“I — Yeah. Sure.”

“Cool. We’ll sit, we’ll talk, and we’ll negotiate my price for getting you to that dealer.” Sandburg put a cup in Ellison’s hands — whisky — and asked, “Have you tried that new vegan place down near the central campus? I heard it has this great basmati and tofu dish.”

 

* * *

“I like meat, Sandburg.”

“Too bad, Ellison. I’m not poisoning myself, just so you can catch the bad guy.”

“Don’t dramatize.”

“I’m not the one having a cow over the lack of cow. You’ll survive — probably a little longer — if you eat a vegan meal.” Sandburg pushed open the door to the restaurant, one that was little more than a hole-in-the-wall, and made his way to the back corner. Ellison followed helplessly in his wake.

“Eating one burger won’t kill you.”

“You’re sure about that?” Sandburg put his elbows on the table. “You’re telling me that when you had these senses, you never once got a sour burger from a fast food joint?”

“I — I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ellison said, grabbing a menu from the stand on the table.

“Like hell you don’t.” Sandburg pulled Ellison’s menu down so he could glare at him. “You’re the one who’s supposed to be the sentinel, not me. I _know_.”

“Know _what_, for god’s sake?” The other two customers paused their conversation to glare at Ellison. He glared back, and when they turned away, he said to Sandburg, “All I want is the name of that dealer.”

“All _I_ want is to get these enhanced senses back to where they belong. Personally, I don’t think that’s going to happen, so you’re going to have to be extra nice to me to make sure you get what _you_ want.” Sandburg leaned back and called out, “Hey, Tony! Two of the basmati and tofu dishes, okay?”

“You got it, Blair.”

“I thought said you hadn’t been here before.”

“I never said that.” Blair reached up and without looking, caught a bottle of water that was lobbed at him by the waiter.

“Score!” said Tony.

Jim hissed, “You did, too!”

“No, I didn’t. I asked if _you’d_ tried this place.”

Ellison felt his blood pressure rising, then forced himself to do a brief meditation. As much as he’d loathed the shaman training Incacha had put him through after his senses returned to normal, Ellison was grateful it allowed him to control his body’s autonomic functions.

“Fine,” he said shortly. “I inferred too much.”

“That you did, my friend.”

“I’m not your friend.” Ellison shoved the menu back into the stand.

“You sure about that?”

He wasn’t sure about anything, not since Sandburg told him about a dream, so rather than admit it, he asked, “What do you want in exchange for that name?”

“I told you already.” Sandburg opened the water and drank it down. “I want some of your time.”

“Wouldn’t you rather have cash? It spends better,” Ellison said as he made a point of eyeing Sandburg’s outfit. It was clean, but it was also ragged enough that the Salvation Army wouldn’t take it.

Quick as a snake, Sandburg reached across the table and grabbed Ellison by the wrist. As soon as their skin touched, Ellison felt some of what he’d once had come back to him. If he tried, he thought he might just be able to hear a conversation three blocks over. Before he could stretch his hearing out that far, Sandburg let go, and Ellison was left with the same horrible emptiness he’d felt four and a half years earlier.

“What the hell just happened?”

At least Sandburg looked as shaken as Ellison felt when he answered. “Destiny, man. I’ve got yours, and you’ve got mine.”

“How do you _know_ that?”

Before Sandburg could say anything, Tony showed up with a basket of bread and two more bottles of water. “Hey, Blair, can we change my session to Tuesday? Laura has tickets to the new exhibit at the Natural Science Museum, and she asked me to go.”

“Sure thing, Tony.”

“Thanks.”

He left, and Ellison asked, “Session?”

“Tutoring. Have to earn money somehow, you know?”

“Fine.” Ellison sat back in the booth. “Now answer my other question.”

“On January 2, 1989, I woke up with a mild hangover and the ability to see, hear, taste, touch and smell things I shouldn’t. A few days later, I had that dream I mentioned.” Sandburg pulled a piece of bread out of the basket and asked, “You with me?”

“Yeah, I’m with you.”

“After that dream — which could have offered a hell of a lot more information, by the way — I started looking for someone, anyone who could tell me what just happened.” Sandburg took a bite of his bread.

“Did you?”

“Yeah. Took a while, but I finally hooked up with a witch down in Arkansas.”

“A _witch_?” Jesus. Sandburg was a complete flake after all.

“Don’t knock the sisterhood, Ellison.” He took another bite of his bread. “She scried for me —“

“Cried?”

“Scried. Took a look at fate on my behalf and figured out that our destinies got switched.”

Ellison gave Sandburg his best cop glare, but he didn’t twitch. “If that’s the case, why didn’t you try to track me down before now?”

“Remember when I said that dream could have offered more information? I didn’t know who you were, only what your eyes looked like.” Sandburg reached into the basket and tossed a piece of bread at Ellison. “Eat. As long as your blood sugar is low, you’re not going to hear a word I say.”

“Keep talking.”

“She told me the magic was too strong for her to reverse, but that eventually, I’d run into the man whose destiny I had.”

“This is bullshit,” he said, talking around a mouthful of bread.

Sandburg grabbed his wrist again. “Is it? Don’t try to tell me you don’t feel that.”

“What is it?”

“Destiny. It’s trying to get back to where it belongs.”

He looked at Sandburg’s hand and felt an itching, roiling desire to get inside the other man’s skin in whatever way possible and to hell with safe. “What do you want?”

“I need a guide, and you’re it.”

“A guide?” Christ. That was what Incacha had told him. That he would be the guide instead of the sentinel, that finding the sentinel he should have been was the only shot he had of making everything right again.

“I’ve been limping along since ’89, and I’m tired of it.” Sandburg twisted his wrist so that they were holding hands. “This is the first time in four and a half years I haven’t had a headache, and it’s because you’re near me.”

“Sandburg —”

“I want to ride with you.”

“You’re not a cop.”

“Don’t have to be.” Sandburg smiled, and Ellison once again felt an insane desire to get down on his knees for him. “City has set policy for allowing citizen observers.”

“How do you know that?” Had this whole thing been nothing but a set-up?

“I was working on my Master’s before the senses came online,” Sandburg said calmly, his hand still warm and dry as it clasped Ellison’s. “One of my proposals involved studying closed cultures, and you don’t get much more closed than the police and fire departments. I had to research how to go about doing that without actually becoming a cop or a firefighter.”

“Oh.”

“Look, let me ride with you for a month. With my senses the way they are, I’m like a human crime lab. You have no idea how much I can help you on the job.”

“And what will you get out of it?”

“Control, man. I need control. Time with you will give it to me.”

Sandburg tightened his grip briefly, and Ellison heard a bird chirp five blocks away. In that moment, he realized he would give Sandburg whatever he wanted, if it meant he could have his senses back, even if only for a few seconds at a time.

 

* * *

**June 18, 1993**

“I don’t like it,” Banks said, frowning.

“I’ve run a background check on him, sir. He’s clean. Never been arrested, and his prints aren’t on file, either.”

“He’s blackmailing you into taking him on a ride-along. How do you know _he’s_ not the new dealer?”

Ellison leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “Everyone I’ve talked to says the same thing: Bookman’s not into the scene. You remember a year ago, when Vice got that anonymous tip and was able to bring in Julius Frankel?”

“Yeah. You telling me he’s the one who tipped you guys off?”

“I didn’t take the call, but Sandburg gave me enough details that I was able to confirm he’s the one who tipped off Massey and Gibson.” Ellison stood up, unable to sit still any longer. “Sandburg’s in good with the street, Captain. We could use him on our side.”

“How long will his standing last, if he starts riding with you?”

“He says it won’t matter, not to the people who talk to him.”

Banks shook his head. “I don’t like it.”

“Captain, please.” Ellison put his hands on Banks’ desk. “Sandburg can tell us who the new dealer is, and all he wants in exchange is to ride with me for a month.”

“What about the next time you need information?” Banks shook his head. “Threaten him with obstruction of justice if he won’t talk.”

“Bad idea.” Ellison stood straight again. “People trust him. If we arrest him, we lose an important connection to the street people.”

“Ellison —”

“Before he moved to the street, Sandburg was a thesis shy of getting his Master’s at Rainier.”

“So? Lots of people on the street have a degree. Doesn’t make them anymore trustworthy than the next man.”

Ellison nodded. “And ordinarily, I would agree. But Sandburg dropped out because of a medical condition —”

“Addiction, right?”

“Wrong.” Ellison resisted the urge to pace. “He developed a number of allergies and wasn’t able to continue his education.”

“Or get a job, either?”

“He earns cash by tutoring. I’m convinced he doesn’t deal or do drugs.” Ellison sat down again. “Please, sir. Let Sandburg ride with me for a month. If nothing else, it will let me develop a relationship with a source of potentially valuable information.”

“I don’t like this.” Banks held up his hand before Ellison could speak again. “If Sandburg’s willing to pee in a cup to prove he’s clean, I’ll allow it. But he’ll have to provide valid photo identification, and he’ll have to have a real address.”

“You got it.”

“Yeah, yeah. Get the hell out of here before I change my mind.”

“Getting out now, sir.”

As Ellison reached the door, Banks said, “And leave that ‘sir’ crap out of my office. Call me Simon, already.”

“Got it, si — Simon.” Ellison gave him a quick salute then headed downstairs. With any luck, he could get Sandburg back to the station before four o’clock to do the paperwork, and maybe, just _maybe_ he could talk him into going outside the city, so he could get another chance to experience his senses again.

 

* * *

**January 1, 1989**

“And, and, and —”

“Shh, take your time.”

The young woman nodded and accepted the glass of wine pressed into her hands. She drained half the glass and said, “I’m never dating another one again, as long as I live!”

The other woman rubbed her back and made soothing noises. “Men. They’re rotten, every last one of them.”

“I, I thought he loved me.” She gulped down the remaining wine. “But all he wanted me for was his stupid thesis.”

“I don’t understand.” If the other woman sounded tense and impatient, the young woman wrote it off as a sympathetic response to her own situation.

“He’s studying enhanced senses for his Master’s,” she said, calming a little, now that the alcohol was hitting her system. “I have really sensitive taste buds. That’s how we met. He advertised for test subjects, you know?”

“Go on.” The other woman gestured to the waiter to bring more wine. “What happened then?”

“After I signed up for his study, he suggested we go out.” The young woman started crying again. “He told me I was lucky, that I was special, and I believed him!”

“That son of a bitch.” The other woman sounded mildly bored, but it didn’t stop the young woman’s tale of love gone wrong.

“I thought we had something special, but last night, he said —” The waiter brought another glass of wine, and the young woman drank most of it down. “He said it was time to detach with love, because he’s leaving in two days on a trip to South America to see if he can find a sentinel!”

“A sentinel?”

“Someone whose senses — all five of them — are enhanced.”

“Oh,” said the other woman. “A watchman.”

“Right. He said it’s his holy grail.” Her tears came more freely, and she wailed, “He said his thesis is more important than I am!”

“That bastard!”

“He is. He really, really is.” The young woman swayed drunkenly in her seat. “He thinks it’s so special, having enhanced senses, but he doesn’t know, because if he did —”

“Yes? If he did?” A tense thread of excitement ran through the other woman’s voice.

“He has no idea what it’s like to get a mouthful of pesticide when all you expected was an organic apple.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t.” The other woman paused. “I’ll bet you anything he wouldn’t know what hit him if he suddenly _could_ know what that was like.”

The young woman brightened at the thought. “You’re right — he wouldn’t!”

“Tell me something,” the other woman said, her voice lowered as if sharing a confidence. “If you could wish for anything in the world to happen to him, what would that be?”

“Anything?”

“Anything. Just make a wish.”

“That’s easy.” She smiled blearily at her new best friend — Annette? Anna? Anya? — “I wish Blair Sandburg was a sentinel, so he would _know_!”

Anya smiled and said, “Done.”

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimers:** Jim Ellison, Blair Sandburg and Simon Banks, all of _The Sentinel_, work for Pet Fly productions. Though Anya, formerly of _Buffy: The Vampire Slayer_, remains under contract to Mutant Enemy, she appears courtesy of D'Hoffryn's Grassroots Vengeance Productions. Ratty, unfortunately, has lost his contract player status and is currently looking for a new agent.


End file.
